The Simpsons lied to me! They lied to all of us!!!

So I was house-sitting for a co-worker last week, and I noticed that his toilets all flush clockwise. I had brief thoughts of making a collect call to some unsuspecting Aussie to check his toilets, but did some research on the Internets instead.
And what did I learn? That Lisa Simpson's explanation of water flow being caused by gravity/Coriolis Effect -- and the entire premise of what I used to think was one of the show's stronger episodes -- was a lie.

Apparently, water flow out of a toilet bowl is determined by the design of the fixture, and has nothing to do with what hemisphere you happen to live in.

Probably the saddest part is that I should've known this, but I didn't. But when we can't trust the Simpsons, where does that leave us as a society?

That said, I have to say, I didn't care for the clockwise flush. For some reason, I found it off-putting.

It's funny that you mention this, because on Friday night I hung out with a friend who just returned from Australia, and she said the water gets sucked straight down, and that nobody in Australia cares about the way the water goes down the drains in America.

Not only did the Simpsons lie, so did my middle school's librarian. Why she'd be talking about that, I don't know, but as middle-schoolers we thought her talking about toilets, drains, etc., was hilarious.